Sturm und Drang

Sturm und Drang  (Storm and Stress)  (Germany: Late 1760s - early 1780s)

      Sturm und Drang was a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music in reaction 
       to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated 
       aesthetic movements.  It lasted about 15 years.

      Writers emphasized subjective emotion, often violent and for ignoble purposes (rejection, jealousy, 
       revenge, power).  The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of 
       Sturm und Drang.  A renewed interest in William Shakespeare's works was influential.

       Writers Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe were participants in the movement, but
        left to found Weimar Classicism.  Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, which he penned at 24, 
        was about a young man who commits suicide because he cannot have the woman he loved.  The 
         book inspired copycat suicides and was banned in three countries.  Goethe regretted writing it and  
         he moderated his romanticism the rest of his life.

         In music, Sturm und Drang featured angular themes with large leaps and unpredictable melodic contours.  
         Tempos and dynamics change rapidly and unpredictably in order to  effect strong changes of emotion 
          as well as pulsing rhythms and syncopation, dynamic changes and accents.  


Haydn's Sturm und Drung symphonies (1768 - 1772):

      Symphony No. 26 in D minor, "Lamentatione" (1769?)  (Second Sturm und Drang symphony)

      Symphony No. 39 in G minor, "Tempesta di mare"  (1767/1768)  (First Sturm und Drang symphony)

      Symphony No. 44 in E minor, "Trauer"  (1772)

      Symphony No. 45 in F♯ minor, "Farewell"  (1772)

      Symphony No. 49 in F minor, "La passione"  (1768)


Dramatic minor key works by Mozart:

      Symphony No. 25 in G minor  "The Little G minor"  (1773) 

      Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 "The Great G minor" (1788) 

      Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 (10 February 1785)

      Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K.491 (24 March, 1786)

      Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K 310/300d (Paris, Summer 1778) - Just after his mother's death

      Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K 457 (Vienna, Oct. 14, 1784)

      Mozart also used minor keys to dramatic effect in his unfinished Requiem mass in D minor (1791).